The stories of HeroicStories.
by Richard Fishback
Las Vegas, Nevada, USA
It was the mid-1980s and the job situation began to wind down for us in our small town. Though we’d never lived in a city, friends in Las Vegas, Nevada, suggested we stay with them a few days and look the city over. We found a single-level apartment in an adults-only complex, and were settled in the next week enjoying our new home.
by Janet Detter Margul
Plano, Texas, USA
When my daughter Lisa was in kindergarten, for her sixth birthday she asked if she could invite not only her whole class to her party, but the other class at school too. I probably turned pale at the thought of 60 kindergartners at a party because she said quickly, “Wait! Don’t say no yet. I have a plan.”
by Charles Kosan
Bretagne, France
In December 1998, I was traveling alone in South Korea. I was roughing it with my small backpack, wearing old shirts, staying in cheap hotels and using public transportation. I started in Seoul and traveled clockwise across the mysteriously beautiful country. Everywhere was quiet and cold.
Walt Johnson
Easton, MD
After Katrina, I was lucky to be able to help with the Louisiana Episcopal Diocese’s project to rehab flooded houses, and also to build Habitat-like houses for folks in Mid-City.
by The Caroler
California, USA
In 1990, as was our family tradition, my husband and I invited children from the local high school aCappella choir, including our son, to sing Christmas Carols to people we felt could use some special Christmas cheer. My husband dressed up as Santa Claus and drove a rented flat bed truck.
by Lisa Swindler
South Carolina, USA
In 1998, a week before Thanksgiving, I took our 10-month-old baby daughter to the doctor for a check-up. The nurse commented how well she looked. Fifteen minutes later we were headed to the hospital emergency room. Ruth’s oxygen level was below 90 and she was having difficulty breathing. It was her fourth hospitalization that year.
Diane Catanzaro
Texas, USA
My husband has, shall we say, a less than supportive father. Out on his own at 16, he lived first with his brother, then with his sister before entering the Navy at 17. Robert wanted to be a medic because of his interest in medicine. His father said “No! Do something that will guarantee a job later: fix airplanes”.
By Patty Mooney
California, USA
It’s been many years since I have had to stand on the end of Pusheck Road in Bellwood, a suburb of Chicago, waiting for the school bus, and yet I remember one special day as though it were yesterday.
by Jeff Simms
Barnegat, New Jersey, USA
It was a nippy Fall day — our favorite kind of weather. It was Saturday and we were going to have a great time. My divorced mother, two younger brothers and I were on our way to the park at the other end of the small Jersey town we lived in. We had our football and makeshift goal posts in the back of the station wagon and our teams already chosen: us against our mother. (Don’t worry, it was only touch football.)
By L. Harding
California, USA
It was 1972. “The Summer of Love” was gone, hippies were a rare sight, but there were still large pockets of narrow minds, filled with distrust, in rural America. More than once we met with proof of that in our travels across “the heartland of America.” Our only home was our tent, our only “real furniture” the baby’s crib, all piled atop the TravelAll. My husband and I were down on our luck, moving from one temporary job to another.